scholarly journals Signal-to-noise ratio uniformity and stability of agar gel phantom with iron (III) oxide as relaxation modifier

Author(s):  
W. X. Er ◽  
W. J. Lim ◽  
Y. Dwihapsari ◽  
M. N. A. Awang ◽  
A. N. Yusoff

Abstract Background Agar has been commonly used as one of the materials to fabricate magnetic resonance imaging phantoms in the past few decades. In this study, eleven agar gel phantoms with different iron (III) oxide (Fe2O3) masses were prepared. This study was aimed to evaluate the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) uniformity and stability of agar gel phantoms with and without the addition of Fe2O3 at two different time points (TPs). Fe2O3 powder was used as a relaxation modifier to manipulate and produce various SNR, T1 and T2 values. These phantoms were scanned using turbo spin echo pulse sequence to produce T1- and T2-measurement images. The SNR was then computed by plotting 1, 3 and 25 regions of interest on the images using ImageJ software. The T1 and T2 relaxation equations were then fitted to the experimental results of SNR versus TR and SNR versus TE curves for the determination of saturation (SNRo), T1 and T2 values. Results The results demonstrated that the agar gel phantoms were able to maintain SNR uniformity but not SNR stability after 4 weeks of phantom preparation. The change in the water content and microstructure of the phantoms have no significant effect on T2 relaxation but on T1 relaxation. The T1 and T2 of the agar gel phantoms were minimally affected although there was a systemic increase in the content of the Fe2O3 powder. Conclusions It can be concluded that the agar gel phantoms exhibited the characteristics of SNR uniformity, but they showed instability of SNR at TP2. The Fe2O3 in powder form is not an effective relaxation modifier to reduce the T1 and T2 when it is introduced into the agar gel phantoms. Dissolved nanosized particles should be the focus of future studies.

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. I. Parfenov ◽  
D. Y. Golovanov

An algorithm for estimating time positions and amplitudes of a periodic pulse sequence from a small number of samples was proposed. The number of these samples was determined only by the number of pulses. The performance of this algorithm was considered on the assumption that the spectrum of the original signal is limited with an ideal low-pass filter or the Nyquist filter, and conditions for the conversion from one filter to the other were determined. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm was investigated through analyzing in which way the dispersion of estimates of time positions and amplitudes depends on the signal-to-noise ratio and on the number of pulses in the sequence. It was shown that, from this point of view, the efficiency of the algorithm decreases with increasing number of sequence pulses. Besides, the efficiency of the proposed algorithm decreases with decreasing signal-to-noise ratio.It was found that, unlike the classical maximum likelihood algorithm, the proposed algorithm does not require a search for the maximum of a multivariable function, meanwhile characteristics of the estimates are practically the same for both these methods. Also, it was shown that the estimation accuracy of the proposed algorithm can be increased by an insignificant increase in the number of signal samples.The results obtained may be used in the practical design of laser communication systems, in which the multipulse pulse-position modulation is used for message transmission. 


1986 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. S. Prato ◽  
D. J. Drost ◽  
T. Keys ◽  
P. Laxon ◽  
B. Comissiong ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-123
Author(s):  
Rini Indrati ◽  
Heriansyah Heriansyah ◽  
Wakhrudin Wakhrudin

Background: Time Repetition (TR) is one parameter that can affect the value of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and Contrast to Noise Ratio (CNR). The purpose of this research is to know the effect of variation of TR value on SNR and CNR on cervical MRI examination with Sagital T2 Weighted Fast Spin Echo sequence and to know the most optimal TR value from the variation of TR value to SNR and CNR on cervical MRI examination with Sagital T2 Weighted Fast Spin Echo.Methods: The type of this study was experimental study. The study was conducted using MRI 1.5 Tesla at Kasih Ibu Denpasar Hospital. Data were 40 MRI cervical images of sagital Fast Spin Echo from 10 volunteers with four variations of TR (2500 ms, 3000 ms, 3500 ms, and 4000 ms). The SNR and CNR values are measured by identifying the Region of Interest (ROI) in the corpus, discus, cerebro spinal fluid (CSF), and medula spinalis regions to obtain the average signals and compared with the mean deviation of the background. Data was analyzed by regression test to know the influence and by Anova test.Results: The result of the research showed that there was the influence of TR value to SNR and CNR of MRI Cervical Sagital T2 FSE. There was a strong correlation between the variation of TR values with SNR and CNR Cervical with p-value 0.05, the optimal TR value obtained in Cervical Sagital T2 FSE anatomical image on MRI 1,5 Tesla modality was 3500 ms.Conclusion: Time Repetition affected the signal to noise ratio and contrast to noise ratio. TR 3500 ms produced the most optimal cervical MRI image quality.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaru Sheng ◽  
Rujian Hong ◽  
Yan Sha ◽  
Zhongshuai Zhang ◽  
Kun Zhou ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Based on the high resolution of soft tissue, MRI has gained increasing importance in the evaluation of cholesteatoma, especially diffusion-weighted imaging(DWI). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of 2D turbo gradient- and spin-echo (TGSE) diffusion-weighted (DW) pulse sequence with BLADE trajectory technique in the diagnosis of cholesteatoma at 3T and to qualitatively and quantitatively compare the image quality between the TGSE BLADE and RESOLVE methods.Method: A total of 42 patients (23 males, 19 females; age range, 7-65 years; mean, 40.1 years) with surgically confirmed cholesteatoma in the middle ear were enrolled in this study. All patients underwent DWI (both the prototype TGSE BLADE DWI sequence and RESOLVE DWI sequence) using a 3-T scanner with a 64-channel brain coil.Qualitative imaging parameters (imaging sharpness, geometric distortion, ghosting artifacts, and overall imaging quality) and quantitative imaging parameters (apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC], signal-to-noise ratio [SNR], contrast, and contrast-to-noise ratio [CNR] for the two diffusion acquisition techniques were assessed by two independent radiologists. Result: Comparison of the qualitative scores indicated that TGSE BLADE DWI produced less geometric distortion and ghosting artifacts (P<0.001) and higher image quality (P<0.001) than RESOLVE DWI. Comparison of the evaluated quantitative image parameters between TGSE and RESOLVE showed that TGSE BLADE DWI produced a significantly lower SNR (P<0.001) and higher parameter values (both contrast and CNR (P < 0.001)) than RESOLVE DWI.The ADC (P<0.001) measured by TGSE BLADE DWI (0.763×10-3 s/mm2) is significantly lower than that measured by RESOLVE DWI (0.928×10-3 s/mm2). Conclusion: Comparing with RESOLVE DWI, TGSE BLADE DWI can significantly improve the image quality of cholesteatoma by reducing magnetic sensitive artifacts, distortion, and blurring. TGSE BLADE DWI is more valuable for the diagnosis of small-sized (2mm) cholesteatoma lesions compare with RESOLVE DWI image. However, TGSE BLADE DWI also has some disadvantages: the whole image intensity is slightly low, so that the anatomical details of the air-bone interface are not well shown, which is the place to be improved in the future.


1989 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Holtås ◽  
F. Ståhlberg ◽  
H. Nilsson ◽  
E.-M. Larsson ◽  
A. Ericsson

The influence of flip angle and TR on signal to noise ratio and contrast between cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and cord was evaluated in cervical spine imaging in 5 volunteers, using gradient echo technique. All experiments were performed on a 0.3 tesla Fonar β-3000 M scanner using solenoidal surface coils. The most useful sequence was considered to be TR/TE=300/12 ms and 10° flip angle. This sequence provided images with a ‘myelographic appearance’ with good delineation of cord, CSF and epidural space. The grey and white matter was also regularly visualized. The acquisition time was considerably shorter than would have been necessary if a long TR/TE spin echo sequence had been used to obtain the same contrast pattern and the sequence was not as sensitive to motion as was the spin echo sequence. The sequence was also evaluated in 10 patients with degenerative disease and in 5 with lesions in the cord. The gradient echo sequence was found to be equal to or better than short and long TR/TE spin echo sequences in demonstrating narrowing of the spinal canal and cord lesions. The drawback is the limited signal to noise ratio.


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